


Letters To Nowhere, Dear Thorin

by elluvias



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, and it will be short, but it will end in tears, it will be humorous, this will not be happy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 01:31:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elluvias/pseuds/elluvias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of letters written to Thorin over the course of the journey. Which may not end up being as unsent as Bilbo thought they'd be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first letter, short and to the point.

_Dear Thorin,_

_You are an insufferable ass. You are haughty and overbearing. You are also quite undeniably insane._

_A dragon. You want to fight a dragon that took your kingdom from you. I do not know if you are aware of this but you are flammable. Especially with all the body hair you have. Honestly how practical is it for you to have hair that long or thick near anything incendiary is beyond me. I’m surprised half our company does set themselves on fire with the amount of hair they have and their distinct lack of bathing. Most of the things back in the Shire that smelled like our esteemed company usually had to be kept away from flames, actually they quite remind me of Gandalf’s fireworks._

_Speaking of Gandalf he’s the one who told me that I had to do this silly exercise. So I may not ‘blow up’ at any given point because of how I am treated. As it would be unwise to tell any person as armed and short of temper as you are that you’re being unreasonable I complied. So here I am, writing a letter to you despite being across the fire from you esteemed personage. It isn’t like opening my mouth and letting words come out would do anything except bury myself further in your opinion. You’d ignore it and it would be like I hadn’t spoke at all._

_I still signed the contract though. I am a member of this company. I would like it if you treated me with some respect as I probably will die some horrific death on this mad adventure. I know that it is likely too much to ask of you, King Under the Mountain Guarded By an Angry Dragon Who Wants To Eat Dwarves._

_Sincerely,_

_Bilbo Baggins_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dwarves are very vexing creatures, aren't they?

_Dear Thorin,_

_Nowhere in my contract said I had the potential to be covered in troll snot. I should know, I’ve reread the bloody thing four times now during our stay in Rivendell. I’m not quite sure how I am to deal with this breach of contract. Do I take it up to you? Should I just sit here and forget it? Out of all the possible horrific things that could have befallen me as stated, this is far worse than death. I feel unclean. I feel very unclean. I don’t think I shall ever be clean again no matter how many times I’ve bathed._

_I also want to know how you can remain so irritatingly put together covered in dirt and bodily fluids. It isn’t natural Thorin. It isn’t natural at all how you can remain attractive no matter the odd circumstances we find ourselves in. It is wrong. So very very wrong for you to be able to do that. Is it some unnatural dwarf magic that no one has decided to warn the poor hobbit of? I would have liked a warning._

_Oh don’t worry I won’t be swooning about you like some starry eyed lass. You’re not the only attractive member of our company._

_Also I understand, to some degree, why you dislike the elves. I really do. It is still highly inappropriate to encourage the Company’s wanton destruction of Lord Elrond’s furniture. He seems more amused by it than angry, for which we can thank the Valar for._

_You should also be thanking me for being nice and polite to the elves. They’ve been letting me into the kitchen to help with meal prep. The sole reason you lot aren’t staring pitifully at plates of greens is because I persuaded them to let me fix meals for you. Don’t think I didn’t notice you pocketing my cheese scones to eat later when you could be alone and not have to worry about elves thinking you might like their cooking. Yes, they’re my cheese scones. I made them, not the elves. Same with the sweet breads with clotted cream you had for breakfast, and the cheese and spinach filled pastries for dinner. You should be proud I managed to get Ori to eat something green and like it._

_Actually you’d probably scowl at me and mutter something about being too clever and full of tricks._

_I am not, I just know how to deal with children. Which despite your abilities to look attractive in any situation I am starting to believe that is what you all are. Overgrown hairy children who don’t know how to deal with people not inside your family. I have been in charge more often than not of my Took cousins. I know how to deal with children and how to get them to eat food that they have decided they don’t like._

_All you blasted dwarves give me a headache, but as you aren’t all actually children there is no way I can hand you off to your parents after I’ve had enough. I think once I return to the Shire I will look at my Took cousins a bit more fondly. They’ve never had me nearly throwing breakable objects at their heads._

_Sincerely,_

_Bilbo Baggins_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why Bilbo saved Thorin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be heartache-y and sad.

_Dear Thorin,_

_How did you manage to do this? One minute I’m ready to leave, sod the contract, and several harrowing hours later I’m waving an enchanted letter opener at your mortal enemy in a pathetic attempt to save your life. I was angry at you, furious. Of course I’m lost out here, I’m not an adventurer. I’ve never gone outside the Shire before. I didn’t know what I needed to bring or what I needed to expect. I didn’t even have a weapon other than my wits until Gandalf gave me this ridiculous dagger-sword._

_I was ill prepared for this. I know. I recognize I have little other skill to give this company other than being smart and sneaky. I’ve been battered and bruised, I’ve bled, and I’ve suffered from unpleasant allergic reactions to the ponies. Yet after the handkerchief debacle I haven’t complained. I can’t always control my facial expressions, but I do know I have controlled my tongue. I haven’t asked for more food despite being hungry. I haven’t asked for an extra blanket despite being cold. I have done my best to be the least burdensome member of the company, but it wasn’t enough for you. It wasn’t enough and the words you said to me in the mountain were the most hurtful things you could have come up with._

_How much hurt and hateful words you dished out to me were too much. The pain I felt, the anger and impotency made me lash out at Bofur. Bofur who has been nothing but a friend to me this entire journey. I hated my clever tongue the moment it struck blows to the weak points in his emotional armor._

_In some ways I can only thank the Valar for their ill humor after we tumbled down into the dark._

_I know you thought I had abandoned you. I hadn’t. I was coming after all of you. The goblins ignored me, hobbits have our own brand of magic when we need it. We can hide in plain sight if we have something natural to hide near. I was just attacked on my ill planned attempt to rescue you. I fell off the walkway. I hope I never fall from such a height ever again. There is nothing that can haunt one quite like that terror of nothingness around you, where you almost feel like you’re floating. I fell down, so far down, I passed out along the way from fear or hitting something on my way down._

_You want to know how I escaped? I escaped by playing a game of riddles with some creature. It was not a goblin or an orc, my letter opener did not glow in its presence. It was mad, I do not know if it was born that way or if it had become such after years of isolation. All I do know was that it frightened me like no other creature has. It was like looking at a reflection of the future, a warning, that if I did not escape I would become like that. I would turn into a pathetic creature, a half starved scavenger like this if I did not escape._

_So I cheated, albeit unknowingly at the time. I won the game. It tried to kill me but I ran. Then when it almost caught me a most peculiar thing happened. It did not see me even though it was right on top of me. It wasn’t hobbit hiding magic that veiled me from its sight. It was a queer ring that I had picked up before my encounter with the scavenger. I believe it had once belonged to the creature. Now you can feel rest assured your burglar is no longer a novice._

_The creature led me out, thinking I had lied about knowing how to escape. I could have killed it when I saw you run past. I probably should have. This thing though, Thorin, was pitiful. It had loved once, even if it was just an object. It felt sorrow. The life it led was punishment enough._

_When I got out and followed you I heard your words. I knew your opinion of me was lower than before. Did you see me try to leave? I think you did, though I cannot be certain. I could have left then. I could have tried to find my own way back to Rivendell. Except I couldn’t. I had to prove you wrong. I had to comfort the others, the ones who cared about me, that I was unharmed._

_I don’t know how bad luck seems to follow you Thorin, but it does._

_Azog, that is truly a disgusting piece of filth isn’t he? You certainly know how to pick mortal enemies as impressive as you are. You can’t do things by halves, can you?_

_I hated you this morning or last night. Time is funny in caves and I do not know how long we were down there. I was hurt. I wanted to leave. Yet when I saw you broken and bloody on the ground I couldn’t leave you. I couldn’t let you fall into darkness._

_Funny, isn’t it? How watching you about to die made me realize how much I had fallen in love with you. That the world wouldn’t be right if you died. There would be no justice, nothing good in this world, if you fell to that creature._

_I don’t even really remember moving. To me it seemed like I had suddenly gone from clinging to a tree to tackling an orc. I fully expected I was going to die. I didn’t particularly want to but if it meant my life or yours, I will always choose yours._

_Thank the Valar for the Eagles and Gandalf. They’re the ones who truly saved us._

_I’m glad you’re alive. I’m thankful to the Valar you are alive. I just wish you hadn’t hugged me. I wish I didn’t know what it felt like to have your arms around me. I wish I hadn’t realized how much I needed you Thorin._

_I’m not some lovesick starry eyed lass. I am a middle aged plain respectable hobbit. I know that we cannot be even if by some ridiculous trick of fate you happened to feel the same. I know that dwarves do not marry outside their race. I know that you are a king and have obligations. I will never ask for you to forsake that. I will never let my emotions have breath or a tongue to speak and be heard. I will try to never be more than what I am to you. It wouldn’t be right for you to have this weight added upon everything else you carry._

_I cannot protect you from orcs or dragons or all the foul shadows that prowl this earth. I can protect you from me. I can guard you against any pain I could cause you with these unwanted feelings._

_Forever and Never Yours,_

_Bilbo Baggins_


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short letter written during their stay at Beorn's house

_Dear Thorin,_

_We are at Beorn’s house right now. I’ve never dreamed of a man as big as he. Actually there are a great many things I never dreamed of that have happened to me._

_Forgive me for sounding melancholy. I let it out here, as I’ve let out all the other feelings and thoughts, because it would not due for me to let them out in our Company. I am exhausted, not because we’ve had no rest, but because I’ve felt too much. I am feeling too much, and I doubt I will ever stop feeling like this for the rest of my life._

_You’re the first man I’ve ever truly fallen in love with. You’re not the first man I’ve ever found attractive. Did you think I’ve been a bachelor because no one wanted me? I’ve had many a hobbit lass try to woo me, but hobbit lasses never caught my interest. Certainly I wanted a home, I wanted a family, but I could not in good conscience take someone I did not love. There have been many men in which I have found to be pleasing to the eye, but it is not done in the Shire. Not after you stop experimenting in your tweens at least. At least it is not done openly or in respectable places like Hobbiton._

_I think my father always knew. I think he knew and that is why he tried so very hard to impress on me how to be respectable. You know it was one of the last things he asked of me before he died, that I remain respectable. I tried so hard to be such, I had done everything I could to bury the wants, the desires, of things like adventure and love. Adventure and being loved by whomever you loved was a very Tookish thing for me to want. Father loved me, he wanted me to be protected by the Shire, by society. He believed respectability would bring about my happiness, that I would one day grow out of wanting things that would besmirch my reputation._

_I guess sitting here outside your bedroom door at a skinchanger’s house has ruined all the years of hard work put into being respectable._

_I’m alive again because of this adventure, Thorin. I feel like I haven’t in years, I feel like I belong for the first time since I was a fauntling. I believe I will be at a loss when I am sent back to the Shire, because I will have lost my family. I will have lost you. Then again, I never had you to begin with._

_I never knew being alive hurt so much. Yet I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I wouldn’t trade these experiences for the world. Everything has so much color, so much life, even in the darkest times we’ve faced._

_Now I do wish you’d stop being stubborn about resting and healing. I may not have rights as a lover and you calling me a friend is a rather large leap, but as the hobbit who loves you, as a follower to a King I worry about you Thorin. I want you better before we plunge back into the chaotic waters of this adventure. You are not invincible. You are mortal just like the rest of us, and mortals need to rest._

_If you cannot do that for me, do it for Fili and Kili. Or perhaps, do it for Middle Earth to save us from Fili and Kili. You wouldn’t want to doom us to that sort of fate, now would you? Can you imagine how many diplomatic incidents would happen from their desire to play pranks? Erebor would be lost to chicken feathers and sticky substances rather than war or dragons._

_Ah I suppose imagining a dwarven kingdom smothered in honey and chicken feathers is my signal to go to bed._

_Yours_

_Bilbo Baggins_


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The letters are read

Thorin sat in the empty prison cell glaring at the wall. Elves, captured by stinking sodding elves. There were few things that could be more humiliating than that. The elves had been very thorough. They’d taken many things off his person, they’d taken his key, his map, all his weapons and armor....but...

They had not taken the letters.

Thorin wished that his curiosity had not gotten the better of him when he had overheard his nephews speaking to Bofur about the letters. Kili and Fili only knew they were letters, not to whom they were for. Bofur hadn’t an idea either, and Thorin had been curious. More curious than he’d been in decades. Curious enough to...borrow them, only for a moment.

He had wanted to know who had warranted enough care for the hobbit to write to. It had been just outside Mirkwood, his theft, he had intended to read them quickly and put them back in their place. Except he hadn’t had the time then, and he hadn’t had the time since to replace them in Master Baggins’ pack. It wouldn’t do if Master Baggins had caught on to the theft, but it had been far too dark to write or read within the accursed gloom of Mirkwood.

But...

His hand twitched at the thought, carefully removing the letters from the hidden pocket within his trousers. He had time to discover who these letters were written to.

There was enough light outside to read, and none of his perfumed captors were near. Unfolding the yellowed parchment he began.

_Dear Thorin_

Those words, two words had his heart stopping in his chest. Why on earth would the burglar be writing to _him_? The burglar could have just said whatever had been on his mind.

_No_

Thorin shook his head. He had been uncharitable to Master Baggins for most of their journey. The burglar likely felt a need to vent...but these letters had not been burned or lost. They had not been destroyed. They had been carefully kept in Master Baggins’ pack.

They were of course, intended to be given at him some point. So what was the harm of reading them now?

Reading the first one Thorin barked out a laugh. Oh the hobbit had a sly tongue on him. Their journey would have been far more interesting if he had let his thoughts have voice rather than put pen to paper.

His amusement continued well into the second one. Perhaps when they reclaimed Erebor he would get Master Baggins a fine new coat and shirt to help replace the ones that had been soiled by troll snot. Then he would stand there a bit smudged with dirt and looking unnaturally handsome. Perhaps he’d find all the members of the party that the halfling found attractive, though who else compared to him he did not know. The burglar had never stated.

Yet...he had wondered at the time how the food had gone from nearly unbearable to delicious. At the time he hadn’t noticed how tired Master Baggins had been in Rivendell, now reflecting on his memories he had seem far less rested than the rest of the company. Cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner for thirteen dwarves was no easy feat and it made something inside Thorin squirm. At least Bilbo had known his cooking was appreciated, and how like a burglar to notice when food was being burgled for later.

Then the third letter...that was not what he had been expecting. Perhaps he had hoped for some more light hearted fun, some more insight into the sharp wit that the hobbit kept hidden.

Thorin cringed as he remembered his words to Master Baggins on the mountain pass. He had not been kind to the hobbit at all and....He did not wish to think on it further. Thorin even wanted to stop reading but...he couldn’t. He couldn’t keep his eyes from focusing on the words.

The tale of what the hobbit had survived in the tunnels disturbed him. The scavenger should not have known hobbit riddles or a hobbit the riddles of something that should have been native to the mountains. A magic ring...even Thorin knew all magic rings were not to be trusted. Especially in the hands of beings not built like mountains. It could be dark, it likely was. Thorin wished in that moment the wizard was there, that Thorin could shove the letter in the old man’s face and tell him to deal with spells and enchanted things.

Then came...

Thorin’s breathing stopped as he reread the last part of the letter. Then put them down and stared at the wall.

He had not, honestly, been expecting that. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. His hands reached out again to gently touch the parchment. By Mahal, he had never had anyone love him like that. Had never been so willing to keep quiet on it because of what the other saw as his duties. That they would rather risk hurting than burden him with one more thing.

How dare the halfling presume this? How dare Bilbo believe his heart would be so unwanted! It was a treasure like any other, and dwarves always coveted treasures. How dare he not fight for Thorin’s heart?

But, he mused in his ire, that was not Bilbo’s way. He did not fight unless it meant protecting others. Self preservation meant little to him, it seemed.

What was he to do about this? These were letters Bilbo truly was never going to send. 

Perhaps the last one would tell him more?

Picking up the fourth letter he read it.

There was a mix of emotions he could not name as he read the melancholy words the hobbit had written. It was painful as it was angering, infuriating, how could a feather ask that of his child? To essentially tell them not to find love, to be quiet and hide who they were.

Bilbo’s silence made more sense now and Thorin wanted nothing more than to give him words. To just fill the empty places he knew Bilbo had, to drag him out of the shadows and show him the world.

They couldn’t marry. Bilbo had been right about that. It didn’t mean though that they could not be committed, that they could not be acknowledged.

The hobbit would acknowledge Thorin if it was the last thing the dwarf king did. He would make his burglar see that there was something to hope for.


End file.
